


Reaching for you with trembling fingers

by Analinea



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Erica Reyes, Alive Vernon Boyd, Angst, Episode: s02e04 Abomination, Fluff, Future Fic, Getting Together, M/M, Mind Travel, Pool scene, Time Travel, Touch-Starved Stiles Stilinski, Writer Derek, anyway, at the end, because, because when do I not mention it, can we call it flangst, coffee shop AU, in the future, mention of the Nogitsune, or angsff, so happy ending, the kanima - Freeform, the middle is 60percent angst and 40percent fluff, there's even a little bit of humor, yay!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6726766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Analinea/pseuds/Analinea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek sinks to the bottom of the pool. He blinks. He's dead, he thinks. How else would you explain standing in front of an unknown coffee shop in a generic busy street, people going in and out of the shop <em>through</em> him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reaching for you with trembling fingers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [demonicweirdo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonicweirdo/gifts).



> So! This is a little gift for the awesome Demonicweirdo who helped me survive a very long day by telling me to write a coffee shop AU! She told me I'm obsessed with angst (she's not wrong) BUT! This time there's cuteness and what I hope is fluff :) Enjoy :D

“Stop. Shaking!”, Stiles berated his rebellious hands. He didn't understand why now. He got out of the pool. He drove back from school. He even managed to undress and get in the shower, thinking that the scolding hot water would shake off the last remnants of the cold that seeped in his bones.

Instead, he found himself on the floor, his shoulder slipping down the tiled wall as his knees went weak under him. Was it the steam that made it so hard to breathe?

Stiles raised a trembling arm to turn off the water and it took all he had to get up. His vision swam, sending him back to the pool for a second, to the hours keeping Derek and himself afloat in the freezing water and ultimately _failing_. 

This sudden realization is what had gotten him hard in the shower, the fact that he had been a minute away from dying. From drowning. He had so many nightmares about this that for a second back there, he thought he would wake up.

He punched the floor in anger, surprised to see his bedroom carpet under him. Tear filled eyes took in the familiar room, unchanged, and Stiles had to fight the urge to destroy this indifferent scene.

When his phone ringed, though, flashing Scott's name on the screen, he couldn't keep himself from flinging it at the nearest wall. For all he loved his best friend, Scott's deus ex machina appearance tonight was not enough to make up for what came just before. What almost happened.

“Are you okay?”, came a familiar voice from the dark. Stiles violently jerked away from the hand on his shoulder, the last thing he needed now was Derek's fake concern.

“What do you want?” he asked coldly. He could see the silhouette recoil.

“I-”, Derek hesitated, before getting up to turn on the desk light. That alone made Stiles feel strangely vulnerable, hair still wet, stitting on the floor with a hand still grasping his shirt over his constricted chest. He hated the fact that despite everything he could breathe better with the Alpha in the room.

The teen's analytic mind couldn't help but notice something different about the man. It was already there in the parking lot but magnified now. A softer voice, a softer look in the eyes. Stiles couldn't help but talk in a calmer voice, genuinely curious this time.

“Why are you here?”

Derek looked at him with an intensity that embarrassed Stiles, like walking in on something intimate never meant for him to witness. What came next was so brutally honest that he found himself speechless not even struggling against the arms that guided him to bed before the wolf turned off the light and left him.

All he could do was think the word over and over again until he fell into an exhausted sleep full of water and suffocation and red eyes that brought air back in his lungs.

“I want to care about you.”

 

∆

 

Derek sinks to the bottom of the pool. He blinks. He's dead, he thinks. How else would you explain standing in front of an unknown coffee shop in a generic busy street, people going in and out of the shop _through him_.

He lets himself freak out internally for a second. He was in a pool a second ago, paralyzed -and why had he turned his back on the threat when he couldn't turn his back in the presence of his own betas?- and pissed that Stiles had let him go. He understands, really, the need to make this phone call. It still kinda hurts his feelings. And, well, he doesn't really expect Stiles to come back for him when the teen had already been exhausted before.

At some point, Derek feels like punching the next person disappearing inside his body to come back out on the other side. It was also not a metaphor he was particularly fond of. Not forgetting the fact that he probably couldn't hit anyone here. So, here. Sucky afterlife? Did he came back as a ghost to haunt was seemed to be a cheap Starbuck?

Best way to find out is to go in. He stretches his arm to push the door only to sigh tiredly when it goes through.

What seems like the last customer of the early morning hours goes out of the small shop cluttered with tables, a big mirror taking an entire wall to try and make it seem bigger. A counter takes the other side with so many things piled up on it that the only employee that seems to be there is barely visible.

“Hello?”, calls a voice from behind a juicer. A voice Derek last heard...a few minutes ago? There was...something about a pool? He approaches slowly and comes face to face with an older but very familiar face, making his heart squeeze painfully in his chest.

Whiskey-brown eyes widened seconds before a wide smile appeared.

“Derek?” Stiles exclaims as if it had been years since he last saw him. _It has_ , the wolf thinks, since Mexico. Mexico? Oh, yeah, Mexico. Dying, evolving, leaving.

“Stiles? I didn't know...” Derek trails off while the teen -the man- gets around the counter to clap him on the shoulder.

“Same! What are you doing in town?” Stiles bluntly asks. The other opens and closes his mouth, at loss for words. Stiles laughs and guides him to one of the tables a little apart from the ones already occupied before sitting on the other side.

“You look great, dude!” he says enthusiastically.

“I have a meeting.” Derek finally answers awkwardly, wanting to send a compliment back to Stiles but not knowing how. Stiles gets up.

“Yeah?” the human says over his shoulder, leaning over the counter and coming back with a closed cup he puts down in front of Derek. The man takes a sip of the best coffee he ever had.

“It's amazing.” he softly declares, looking down at the cup in his hand with a quiet wonder.

“Yeah, I...” Stiles replies with a waving of fingers that mean absolutely nothing. Derek pretends to understand with a polite nod.

He looks closely at the human in front of him for a second, the silence between them comfortable. Stiles looks good, healthy, but there's an edge of something Derek feels like he should recognize but can't quite place.

“Why didn't you call me, in all this time?”, he finally asks in a tone he hopes is not accusatory. He's really curious, not that he really expected any of them to reach him for social calls, but he kept waiting for an s.o.s. for some time after he left.

“Why didn't you?” shoots back Stiles, looking at him from under his eyelashes. There's no heat there either.

Stiles sighs and straighten.

“We wanted to, sometimes. See how you were. Then it got really mad back home, and we talked about it once, with Lydia and Scott, calling you to help. But you deserved the peace and quiet and anyway, it was our mess to deal with. After-”

He clears his throat then, and Derek wonders suddenly where Stiles is. This is not the teen he left, and of course he grew up and works and probably studies, but there's no sarcasm, no joke, no excitement or rambles. Who is this dulled version of Stiles? Derek feels really sad, suddenly. Ever since his house got burned down, he can't bear to see beautiful things destroyed, it's why all this time he only bound himself to already damaged things.

“What happened?”, he inquires. Stiles' smile doesn't reach his eyes.

“Same old.”

Derek's about to ask what this means exactly when his phone rings in his pocket. He apologizes and a look at the screen shows him the face of his editor. He's late to the meeting. He answers and assures the woman that he'll be there in five, then hangs up and looks at Stiles.

He wishes he didn't have that meeting so he could stay and try to understand, try to get to know the human again. He feels like there's something there that's worth to come back later. Stiles smiles and gives him a piece of paper with a number scribbled on it.

“Don't wait years to come back.”

 

∆

 

Derek took a deep breath. Where were they again? Oh, yeah.

“Tell me you got him!”, he rasped out, trying to look at Stiles supporting him from behind. The lack of answer on Stiles end was everything he needed to understand they were alone in this. He knew the human wouldn't last much longer like this, but a strange feeling at the back of his mind told him they would survive. He wondered briefly why he tasted coffee on his tongue before a accidental gulp of pool water replaced it with chlorine.

Minutes passed in relative silence, the exhausted breathes of Stiles irritating Derek as much as it worried him. He could feel the frantic heartbeat and the way the human was trading water with more and more difficulty.

“I really don't want to die like this.” brokenly whispered Stiles like he forgot that no matter how low his voice was Derek could hear him.

“What.” dryly asked the wolf. Stiles nervously swallowed behind him, and Derek felt bad for being so harsh when the teen was already terrified.

“Nothing.” he answered defensively.

“Stiles.” Derek warned, but softer this time. That seemed to make the human relax a fraction, which caused them to go under water for a second again and spit water out of their mouths.

“I don't-” Stiles started, interrupted by another gulp of water, “I don't want to-”, he tried again, but this time it was the way the next word caught in his throat that made him stop. Derek didn't push the issue, understanding clearly what the teen couldn't get out. Words had a way to make things way too real.

Finally Stiles declared he needed to hold onto something, and swimming to the edge of the pool seemed to take forever, movements made uncoordinated by tired muscles, frustrating Derek further.

He felt the teen reach for something he couldn't see just a second before they sunk down with no warning. Under him, Stiles desperately tried to get them to the surface again. Suddenly, the feeling that they would get out of this alive fled from Derek, darkness creeping on the edge of his vision.

 

∆

 

Derek blinks and shakes his head lightly.

“Som'in' w'ong?”, asks Stiles around the handful of curly fries in his mouth.

“Just a little dizzy, it passed. I...”, Derek hesitates, “I don't know why it makes me think of the swimming pool, you know? After the Lacrosse game?”

“Oh, yeah,” the other nods, “nearly drowning and Jackson casted as the Kanima...not a movie I'm particularly fond of.”

Derek smiles a little because of the joke that brings back a little of the old Stiles, but the bitterness hidden in the answer stains the happiness.

“You're going to choke on that.”, Derek points out with a raised eyebrow when Stiles stuffs another five fries at once in his mouth. “Where did you buy these anyway?”

“The boss lets me buy some next door. A bit of competition doesn't scare him, and it's not like coffee shops sell any fries at all.” Stiles chuckles. Derek looks around at the empty place, the sign on the door indicating it's closed. It's supposed to be open for at least another half hour.

“You're a terrible boss.” Derek states with a smile. “But you make amazing coffee.”

“Hours at the Sheriff station makes that a survival skill. You wouldn't believe how bad their coffee is.” Stiles replies with a faraway look. Derek is hesitant to break the unspoken rule between them of not delving into the past years, especially when he had seen this kind of look on the human's face each of the few time they saw each other.

They're more comfortable now, and Derek finds himself talking easily with Stiles about his writing, his new life here. Taking news of the Pack that's still back in Beacon Hills. But they don't broach subjects having to do with the time Derek wasn't there to witness first hand.

They can't built back anything if Derek is kept in the dark about the past indefinitely, though.

“I always pictured you as a cop.”, he says, hoping to introduce the subject smoothly. That goes out of the window the second he notices the way Stiles closes off. It's a tension in his whole body and a sudden avoidance of the eyes.

“Yeah, well, everybody did.”, he answers, playing a little with the wrapping on the table. “Me too, for a while.” The silence falls for a few seconds then and Derek figures that he came this far, he might as well try to get to the bottom of the story.

“So why didn't you?”

Stiles looks up at him with something like weariness and sighs before looking away again.

“You know after fighting for our lives for so long...we were just kids and I already feel like a war vet. For some times I thought all this was my fault, but Scott-”, Stiles clears his throat, “Scott cornered me one day and told me that I was stupid, that if Peter had not bitten him then it would've been someone else. There's days when all I want is for all this to have happened to som- to someone el-”

He can't finish his sentence, tears in his eyes and chocking on the words, but he doesn't need to. He didn't answer the question either, but Derek won't insist. He just wants to go back to the happy they started to be only minutes ago, even if the fact that they have to talk about all this remains. But there's no rushing this. All Derek knows is that if he could heal and forgive, so can Stiles. He just hopes it won't take as much time.

 

They're walking down along a canal. If Derek stopped a second to think about it he wouldn't really remember how they got there or even where that is. All that matters right now is that they're laughing.

“You didn't!”, snorts Stiles and Derek's brain stops for a second because that smile is probably the most beautiful thing he saw in some times. It makes him think of seeing his little sister's face after years believing she was dead, of his mother's when he used the claws, of getting away from Beacon Hills and finding that his lungs were only half filled all this time. It's like that.

“I totally did!”, he answers but more quietly than the discussion was until now. Until the sudden realization that all these times with Stiles started to become more than just seeing an old friend again, something he impatiently waited for the second they parted ways.

The laughter dies down and they walk a few minute in a happy silence, just content with each other's presence. Derek tries not to stare at how Stiles walks, confident but not quite conscious of the looks it brings on him. He tries not to think about their conversation about love and exes, _Malia and I broke up and never really got back together, and then we stopped without really realizing it and she found someone else. I never really...I was too messed up to think about anything else but getting one foot in front of the other and now I just don't want anything meaningless._

Derek understands, really. He also understands that this could become something meaningful. It's a patience game, letting his feelings grow and letting Stiles maybe do the same thing without scaring him away. Right now Derek is the most emotionally stable of the two, and that's something he would never have believed, so Stiles heart is like a wild little animal licking it's wounds in a dark corner and hissing at anybody getting too close too quickly.

The wolf also knows that nothing but a beautiful friendship could come out of all this. He's okay with that. Right now all he wants is walking down along a canal on a beautiful warm day with this man next to him, laughing and staying silent and talking until their throats were dry. Turning their head towards the sun, and looking into each other eyes thinking that there's a universe inside everyone of us.

 

They're at the coffee shop again, and Derek is leaning against the counter watching Stiles make the next order while chatting enthusiastically with the customer. When he's done, there's a quiet moment before the next person comes in. They look at each other and smile then, talk a little. Derek wonders what these times were like when there was no one else but Stiles and a couple of people sitting on the tables inside. He pictures a silence full of memories and a feeling of failure. He's glad he's filling those silences now.

So every chance he gets, he recalls good memories of the time they spent together back home. Never forget that among the bad there's still good. And every time he drinks one of Stiles creations, he tells him how amazing it is. Stiles may have had a dream to be a cop once, his dad may have wanted him to be a cop, but it's okay to change dreams when you realize yours is actually a nightmare or just not so good anymore. It's okay to have multiple dreams and choosing one.

Whatever Stiles' case is, Derek knows owning this coffee is something he wanted too, not just a back up plan. It's not a failure, and the wolf is sure John Stilinski knows that too. All they have to do now is get Stiles to see it too.

 

The cup in his hand is one of Stiles'. They're sitting on a bench in a park and the leaves start to turn to gold. Derek breathes deep and the human next to him does the same without realizing it. It makes Derek smile and turn to him. Stiles looks back at him with a questioning look.

“I'm really glad I found your shop.”, the wolf finally says, and the other's eyes widen in surprise just before he starts to laugh.

“How did you find it, by the way?”

“I-”, Derek hesitates, tries to remember how he got there. “I don't know, I guess I just did.”

They look at each other for a minute before Stiles looks up at the sun rays passing between the branches over their heads.

“I think I'm falling in love with you.”, Stiles bluntly declares. His eyes stay stubbornly fixed upward.

“I think I already did.”, Derek softly answers, hoping it's the right thing to say. Judging by the whiplash-quick turn of head Stiles does to study the sincerity of the words, it was.

They just stare into each other eyes for a long minute, the only sound their breaths and the wind in the trees. Derek want to reach to smooth the ruffled hairs on Stiles head, feel how soft they must be. He thinks he might get his wish soon.

“You're not...”, the human whispers, “I'm so...”

He never finishes, and just like he was the first brave enough to confess anything, he's the first to stretch his arm to gently touch Derek's cheek with trembling delicate fingers before running them in his hair. The man stays as still as possible, not wanting to break the moment.

Stiles closes his eyes and a single tear falls down. Derek's heart clench, he wonders how long it's been since the human got gently touched, with affection and tenderness. Derek wonders how long Stiles wanted to touch someone like that. Maybe he thought he would never get to, because he would shatter anything beyond repair with his damaged soul and his blood soaked hands.

So Derek moves. He raises his arm and rakes his fingers through Stiles' hairs, cups his cheek in his hand. The younger man tilts his head and raises his shoulder to lean into the touch, looks like a violinist at the end of the most beautiful concerto, heart wreaked and relieved. Exhausted. Alive.

They get close to each other until their foreheads touch, too overwhelmed by a simple contact to kiss yet. They'll get there, eventually. For now, wind around them, coffee forgotten on the bench next to them, each other scent mingling with the smells coming from the heated earth and trees, sun warming their skins. It's enough.

 

∆

 

Stiles woke up the next morning to the sound of breakfast in the process of being cooked and the wonderful smell of said food. It was frankly the only thing motivating enough to get his sore body out of bed.

What he found in the kitchen was his dad heating something out of a paper bag from one of Stiles favorite food place.

“Where this from?”, the teen asked with a yawn, making the Sheriff turn to him with a blank look on his face that woke his son faster than a cold glass of water could have. That either spoke trouble and a lifetime of being grounded for Stiles -but how could breakfast do that?- or something so disturbing happening that the _Sheriff_ was still shocked by it.

“Derek Hale.”, his dad said, enunciating each name like he couldn't get his head around what the words meant. Stiles opened his mouth in surprise, and never closed it. A few long seconds ticked by like that, father and son looking at each other without really understanding in what parallel universe they found themselves in.

“Derek- Derek _Hale_?”, Stiles finally shouted.

“You know another one?”, John deadpanned. Stiles stuttered.

“But why?”, he managed to get out, and the raised eyebrow on his father's face told him that the Sheriff thought his son had the answer to that particular question.

Stiles let himself fall heavily in one of the chairs. His legs couldn't hold him up any longer, and he really had to think about what was happening right now. Derek Hale brought breakfast to his house, using the front door and even giving it to his dad? That was just...

“What did he say?”

“He said to thank you. And he said he would try to do better.”

 

∆

 

Derek stands in front of a coffee shop in the early morning hours. It opens in thirty minutes but he gets in all the same, greeted by the sound of a bell and wonderful smells.

The inside is colorful and welcoming, big vintage posters of movies on the walls, a big shining counter with a menu hanging behind, filled with pop-culture themed food names. A lot of it has werewolves references.

“Derek?” Stiles exclaims as if it had been years since he last saw him. _An hour_ , the wolf thinks with a fond smile. Stiles reaches over the counter to fist his hand in Derek's shirt and pulls him in a quick kiss.

“For luck with your editor!”

“Derek, stop being so cute of he'll have trouble with his boss!”, says a voice from the kitchen. Without letting go of the shirt Stiles leans back.

“You're not my boss, Erica!”, he shouts, “You're my business partner!”

“And don't forget who loaned you the money!” Derek adds with a laugh.

Boyd walks out of the kitchen then, flour all over himself, and throws a bag at Derek with “The Werewolf's Oven” written in big red letters on it, a triskel drawn behind the name.

“Good luck's breakfast.”, he says before going back to baking whatever would be today's special. Derek watches all of them with a proud happy smile.

“Go!”, Stiles gets him out of his reverie, claps him lightly on the arm, “You're gonna be late!”

Derek steals one last kiss and gets on his way. He has a sudden thought about that time in the pool with the Kanima, years ago. He shakes his head with a smile.

It feels like another life. Like the beginning of this one. He raises his head to the sky, sun on his skin and love in his heart, and without really knowing why lets a small “thank you” be carried away by a wind that, for a second, feels like his mother's touch.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it :) Kudos are life and even the smallest comment can make my life a thousand times better <3  
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://kinsbournescream.tumblr.com/)


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